PermissionsEX chat problem

There is a gap in front of the < symbol and my rank. Here are the plugins and the pic and it says can not retrieve data.

 

Post chatmanager config and pex config.

 

Also it looks TO ME that its EssentialsChat & Towny messing with it. because ChatManager is off. If you go into the Essentials's main config. goto the CHAT area check the format there. and if Towny has a chat related thing look there too.

 

Chat Manager
enable: false
message-format: <%prefix%player%suffix> %message
global-message-format: <%prefix%player%suffix> &e%message
ranged-mode: false
chat-range: 100.0

PermissionsEX Config

permissions:
backend: file
backends:
file:
file: permissions.yml
superperms: {}

Also there is a message that says could not retrieve update data is it related?